Harry Potter and the Dark Lord of the Sith

Chapter 23.

Two remotes hovered between Luke and Harry. The trainees readied their lightsabers. Yoda nodded, and the droids opened fire.

For a while, things went well enough. Luke and Harry anticipated each other's moves and managed to deflect the bolts away. Then the remotes started increasing their rate of fire. The Jedi students frantically swung their lightsabers, trying to keep up. But it was just too much. Stun bolts peppered them. Yoda did not look happy.

"Feel the Force, you must," he said. "Open yourselves to it."

Luke nodded. They lit up their blades and got ready. The remotes fired. Harry and Luke deflected the bolts for as long as they could, and then, without agreement, tightly gripped their sabers and charged. Yoda immediately retracted the droids.

"No, no," he said. "To anger, you yourselves opened."

"What?" Harry didn't understand.

"Anger... the dark side of the Force you tried to use. Win you might have... but heavy burden that power is."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked, confused.

"Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. Easy to tread the dark path is... Anger and fear will propel you along. Again," he instructed. "Calm, at peace you must be. Let anger join you you must not."

Harry tried to relax. He reached out with the Force and contacted Luke's mind, opening himself up. He didn't even have to open his eyes. His saber almost moved by itself, deflecting the bolt. Luke did the same thing with the shot from the other remote. The droids again started firing more rapidly. The Jedi trainees kept up. Harry felt like he knew where the bolts would strike before the droids' computers did--which made no sense at all, since the droids were supposed to fire randomly.

Finally, the remotes reached their maximum firing rate. Harry began to hope that the exercise was complete. Then a stun bolt hit him, and he opened his eyes. Yoda released two additional seekers. The four remotes hovered in the air between the students. Harry gasped.

Luke raised his saber. "Ready?" he asked.

Harry nodded, although he was uncertain if he could hold out against four remotes for even a second. Still he took a ready stance. Yoda motioned. The bolts began to fly.

Very soon, Harry felt he couldn't keep up. He managed to avoid getting hit, but he couldn't block all the bolts either. He just let them fly by. And the remotes were still not firing at their maximum rate. Harry had to put more and more effort into the fight. It was draining him.

Suddenly he got an idea. Touching Luke's mind, he tried to communicate it. Luke raised his eyebrow, but Harry felt that he understood. He began moving towards the other student.

When they got close enough to reach each other with their blades they took positions so that each of them could block bolts aimed for the other's backside. Doing so, they kept closing up, until they stood with backs to each other, each covering a semicircle with his blade. Now, they didn't have to worry about deflecting bolts into each other. After a minute more of this, Yoda stopped the droids.

Harry wiped the sweat off his forehead. They both looked at the Jedi Master. Yoda said nothing, but he didn't complain. Harry decided it meant there was an improvement.

"We made a good team," he told Luke.

"Yes," Luke agreed. "But..."

"What?"

Luke's question was addressed to Master Yoda. "Well, it's easy not to feel anger at the remotes," Luke said. "It will be harder against a live opponent."

"Yes," Yoda said. "Difficult to control anger is. Do it you must, or work together you be able to will not. Weaker by yourselves you are. Easier prey for the dark side. Come," Yoda beckoned them. "Meditate, we have to."

XXXXXXXX

Hermione woke up with the sun shining brightly into her eyes. She felt refreshed, and most of her pain subsided. She sat up. The flight suit fell away and realized she was wearing nothing.

"Wedge! You took my clothes off!"

"I'm sorry, but I had to see if everything was all right," the pilot apologized. "You had some serious bruises that had to be treated."

"I'm going to kill you!" She reached for her wand.

"I don't really think you want to do that," Wedge said, standing with his back to her. "But if you insist..." His blaster landed in front of her. That was something she didn't expect.

"What's the meaning of this?"

"You don't really want to kill me, do you?"

"Why not? And turn around!"

"Do you really want me to?"

That brought Hermione to her senses. "No," she said slowly, and began to get dressed. I probably did need help, she thought, and then her anger came back. That still doesn't give him the right--"

But he did take care of her. And he wasn't looking at her now. That was something.

"Can I look now?" he said.

He is uncomfortable, she sensed. But she already finished putting on her tunic. "It's okay. Don't you--" she began.

Wedge cut her off. "No, Hermione. If something like this happens again, I'll do the same thing. And anyone else around, if he's got a brain that's half-functional, will do the same thing. Your life comes before any sense of decency."

Hermione nodded, but Wedge continued. "If you think I would take advantage like that of a sleeping, battered, exhausted woman, maybe you should reconsider our friendship. Sith, if you think I would do that, maybe I should reconsider our friendship."

"Wedge..." she stammered. He just looked at her. Thinking like that is an insult to him, she realized. "It's okay."

"Let's put that behind us," he said. Underneath their flight suits Rebel pilots were simple tunics and pants. Hers and Wedge's were black--not ideal, but certainly less conspicuous in this forest than white and orange flight suits. She carefully folded hers, and put it next to Wedge's.

Wedge sat next to her. "You want to ask me something," he noted.

"Yes. What happened to the rest of the squadron?"

"I believe they got away."

"They left us?"

"I ordered them to. I said they couldn't rescue us if they got shot down themselves. They'll find us. Our job is to make sure they find us alive."

"How long?"

"I don't know. Could be days... or weeks. We have to last however long it takes. You hungry?"

She was, but because of all the other things on her mind, she only noticed it now. "Yes. And thirsty."

"Well, there's a spring right there." Wedge pointed to a stream of water coming out of a slope of a hill. "As long as we stay next to that river, water won't be a problem."

"How can you say that? Didn't Jan say the Empire tests chemical weapons here?"

"Don't worry, I've tested it. It's quite safe."

"What about food?"

"Well, that's the more troublesome part. Here." He handed her a ration bar. She bit into it. "We have enough supplies for three days--five if we really stretch them. After that--"

"Can't we hunt?"

"I don't know. I didn't see any animals around. I could probably scrounge up something to fish with. But, there are two problems with that."

"What?"

Wedge took out his blaster. "I have no spare ammunition," he said. "This thing's good for seventy-five shots, and then I'll have to throw it to hit anything. And using that up for hunting is a bad idea five kilometers from fifty thousand stormtroopers looking for you."

"And the second problem?"

"Are you prepared to eat raw meat? I'm not going to risk lighting a fire to signal the imperials."

"That shouldn't be a problem. I can create a smokeless fire with magic. As long as we light it during the day, we'll be okay."

"That's good. Now, we should get moving."

Hermione nodded. Staying in one place was a sure way to get caught.

"You should activate your emergency transmitter," Wedge told her.

"Oh. Yeah," Hermione remembered. The emergency transmitter fired coded ten-second bursts of information at random times, once every twenty-four standard hours. If one looked for it specifically, it would be immediately detected. If one didn't, it was another burst of static. This was the Alliance's solution to being able to tell your friends where you were without giving the same information to your enemies.

"One second," she said. "Wedge, our flight suits--what did you plan to do with them?"

"Tie them to a big rock and throw into the river."

"I've got a better idea. Reducio!" The suits shrank, and Hermione put both of them in her pocket.

"That could come in handy," Wedge commented.

"Yeah. Let's go." She looked around and headed after Wedge. "One more thing. How long have I been asleep?"

"The afternoon we landed, the night, and most of the morning. Eighteen hours."

"Did you get any?"

"No. I'll make it up by having you stand guard tonight." He smiled at her. She grinned back, and they headed through the forest.